In documents filed in court last week and made public Monday, Luc Leclair claims the “verdicts are unreasonable and unsupported by the evidence and the instructions” the judge gave the jury.

Magnotta, 32, was found guilty Dec. 23 of the first-degree murder of Lin Jun after a three-month trial and eight days of jury deliberations. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Before sentencing him, Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer asked Magnotta if he had anything to say, to which he replied: “No, your Honour.”

Leclair also maintains the judge made mistakes when he instructed the jury on the use of statements Magnotta made to psychiatrists Joel Watts and Marie-Frédérique Allard.

He said Cournoyer should have dismissed juror No. 14, who had a distant connection to the detective in the case. Leclair wrote that there was “reasonable grounds of a reasonable apprehension of bias.”

Admitted killing Lin Jun

Magnotta admitted to killing and dismembering Lin, a 33-year-old Concordia University student, but claimed his mental illness prevented him from knowing what he was doing.

Leclair claims Cournoyer erred in instructing the jury about the not-criminally responsible section of the law.

He also claims Cournoyer confused the issue of intent, planning and deliberation when he instructed the jury about motive.

A jury verdict can only be appealed if the judge erred in law, not because the defence or the Crown is unhappy with the jury’s decision. The appeal hearing is scheduled for Feb. 18.

Magnotta invited Lin to his apartment in May 2012, then killed, decapitated and dismembered him. He mailed his feet and hands to political parties and to two schools in Vancouver. He buried his head in Angrignon Park.Arrested in Berlin

Magnotta cleaned his apartment after killing Lin, then took a plane to Paris and an overnight bus to Berlin where he was arrested in an Internet café June 4, 2012, while looking at news stories about himself.

He was brought back to Canada two weeks later by a Canadian military plane and placed in detention at the Riverère de Prairies detention centre.

Gruesome evidence

His trial, presided over by 14 jurors, 12 of whom deliberated, heard some of the most gruesome evidence ever presented in a Canadian courtroom. It was also one of the few trials to have extensive surveillance camera footage of the accused.

The jury saw footage of Magnotta going in and out of his Décarie Blvd. apartment, mailing parcels at the Canada Post outlet at a nearby Jean Coutu store, passing through security at Trudeau airport, as well as in a hotel lobby in Paris. The jury also viewed the video Magnotta made of his dead and dismembered victim, which was posted online.

Related

In all, Magnotta was found guilty on five counts: first degree murder, producing and distributing obscene material, sending obscene material through the mail, indignity to a human body and harassing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other MPs.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/luka-magnotta-defence-to-appeal-jurys-guilty-verdict/feed0011415-1216-magnotta-skybox-0115_col_brownstein-W.jpgmontgomerysueMagnotta may have known what he was doing: Crown's psych experthttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/magnotta-possibly-knew-what-he-was-doing-crowns-psych-expert
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/magnotta-possibly-knew-what-he-was-doing-crowns-psych-expert#commentsWed, 26 Nov 2014 22:22:20 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=407869]]>It’s possible that despite his schizophrenia, Luka Magnotta knew what he was doing when he killed Lin Jun, dismembered him and mailed his body parts across the country, a psychiatrist hired by the Crown prosecutor in the case testified Wednesday.

Magnotta refused to meet with Gilles Chamberland, who based his ambiguous report on eight full weeks of testimony at the first-degree murder trial, especially that of two psychiatrists hired by the defence to evaluate the accused.

Those witnesses said that Magnotta, who was diagnosed in adolescence as schizophrenic, had not been treated for his illness for some time and, without medication, became psychotic. He was unable, therefore, to decipher right from wrong when he killed Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese national and Concordia University student.

But Chamberland maintained that such a psychosis could also be explained by Magnotta’s use of recreational drugs.

The psychiatrist offered two examples raised in the defence when Magnotta said more than once that he was afraid his roommates in a home for mentally ill patients would tell his doctor that he used crack. He also mentioned that his grandmother falsely believed he took drugs.

Magnotta was also apparently able to work as an escort, showing a certain level of organization and ability to handle stress, Chamberland wrote in his report. He was also seemingly very active and coherent on social media and while he probably could have worked, he was able to convince doctors to sign forms for disability payments.

“It seems, at the very least, that the amount of welfare (Magnotta) received for employment disability was not justified,” the doctor wrote.

When Magnotta discussed his crimes with the psychiatric experts for the defence, he said he was in a state of confusion and was unable to remember large parts of what happened that night from May 24 to 25, 2012.

“In such a state of confusion, someone suffering from schizophrenia could commit murder,” Chamberland wrote. “However, in those situations, we would expect to see a state of disorganization before the event as well as after.”

Just weeks before killing Lin, Magnotta made an appointment with psychiatrist Joel Paris at the Jewish General Hospital. Based solely on what Magnotta told him, Paris diagnosed him with borderline personality disorder, not schizophrenia.

Chamberland said Paris’s diagnosis would have an impact on evaluating whether Magnotta should be found not criminally responsible because the accused doesn’t seem to have lost touch with reality.

Magnotta, who has admitted killing Lin but claims he should be found not criminally responsible, cleaned up his Décarie Blvd. apartment in the hours following the death and bought a suitcase in which he placed Lin’s torso. The suitcase as well as garbage bags containing the victim’s limbs were found May 29 in the garbage behind the apartment building.

Magnotta also made two trips to Jean Coutu to buy and exchange boxes to mail Lin’s hands and feet to Ottawa and Vancouver. He bought a plane ticket to Paris online and ordered a pizza.

The Crown maintains that Magnotta, 32, planned his acts and even practised when, a week before Lin’s death, he brought a young Colombian man to his apartment, tied him naked to the bed and videotaped him as he snored in an apparent drugged state.

“It seems very possible that the sane side of (Magnotta), that would have been in touch with reality when the acts were committed, would be amply sufficient to permit him to judge the nature and quality of his acts and to know that they were wrong,” Chamberland concludes in his report.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/magnotta-possibly-knew-what-he-was-doing-crowns-psych-expert/feed0111814-1119_city_magnotta_9022-1119_city_magnotta_9022-W.jpgmontgomerysuePolice told about location of Lin Jun's head via faxhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/police-told-about-location-of-lin-juns-head-via-fax
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/police-told-about-location-of-lin-juns-head-via-fax#commentsThu, 16 Oct 2014 17:12:05 +0000http://postmediamontrealgazette2.wordpress.com/?p=287794]]>After finding Lin Jun’s torso, limbs and extremities, Montreal Police received a fax from a Toronto lawyer with detailed directions leading them to the last missing body part — the head.

“You may find what you are looking for by following these directions,” read the three-page fax from Raphael J. Feldstein, sent on July 1, 2012, weeks after Lin’s death.

Antonio Paradiso, a Montreal Police investigator called to help in a bizarre case that began with the discovery of a torso in a suitcase, told Quebec Superior Court Wednesday that as soon as he read the fax the morning of July 1, 2012, he and his partner headed to Angrignon Park, as directed.

By then, they had already identified Lin as the victim and had found his DNA all over Luka Magnotta’s Décarie Blvd. apartment. His feet and hands had been mailed to political parties in Ottawa and two schools in Vancouver. The arms and legs were found in garbage bags behind the apartment, close to the suitcase and torso.

The faxed note read like something from a scavenger hunt: “Exit the Angrignon Subway station by the parking lot, walk across the parking lot towards the pond, go through a bunch of trees, walk left on the pathway around the pond. Once you get to the bottom of the pond just before it begins to curve around to the right, stop and look on your right into the tall grass about two feet from the water.

“You might find what you are looking for there.”

“I wasn’t sure which pond to start with because there are three in the park,” Paradiso testified Wednesday during the third week of Magnotta’s first-degree murder trial. “We called in the canine unit to help because there is a lot of high grass.”

The investigator said he tried to reach Feldstein to narrow down his instructions but was unsuccessful.

As a Longueuil police officer and his dog scoured the dense bushes beside one of the ponds, Paradiso walked the path beside it. It took them an hour and a half to find the head, which was already badly decomposed.

By the time the grisly discovery was made, Magnotta, the person suspected of dumping it in the park, had already been arrested in Berlin and brought back to Montreal.

Paradiso was part of a group of six police officers and one psychiatrist that accompanied the Scarborough, Ont., native on a plane back to Montreal June 18 from Berlin. The 32-year-old was arrested June 4 in an Internet café in that city after leaving Montreal May 26. It is believed that Lin was killed on May 24 in Magnotta’s apartment.

Magnotta has admitted to the five charges against him, including the murder and dismemberment of Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese Concordia University student, but claims his mental state prevented him from knowing what he was doing. He wants the jury to find him criminally not responsible. The Crown contends the acts were both planned and deliberate.

Paradiso said he first met Magnotta when he arrived at the Berlin airport for his flight home and said there was nothing special about him.

“The plane was a couple of hours late because of mechanical problems,” Paradiso told court.

Defence lawyer Luc Leclair asked what kind of problems. Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier demanded to know how that was relevant.

Paradiso continued his testimony, explaining how he escorted Magnotta up the stairs of the plane and took him to the back of the aircraft to the galley, where he arrested him.

“He showed me a piece of paper that said he was using his right to remain silent,” Paradiso said.

Magnotta sat in a middle section of seats at the rear of the two-aisle plane and was flanked by investigators, Paradiso continued.

Magnotta went to the bathroom twice and ate twice, Paradiso recalled.

“He slept most of the flight, was very quiet, very co-operative,” he said. “At one point I cut his food.”

“Was that to make him talk or just to be nice?” Leclair asked the witness.

“It was just practical,” Paradiso said. “He was handcuffed.”

The jury also heard Wednesday from forensic toxicologist Catherine Lavallée, who said she found Benadryl and Temazepam in Lin’s liver and gastric fluid, which she received from the morgue on June 8, 2012. Both medications can be used as sleeping pills and are readily available, although Temazepam requires a prescription in Canada. It is easily bought over the Internet without a prescription, she said.

Lavallée said that since the body was too decomposed to extract urine or blood, she was unable to determine how much of the two medications Lin may have taken.

In her work, she has seen Temazepam used in sexual assaults, homicide and other suspicious deaths, Lavallée said. The medication can cause unconsciousness and amnesia.

And after examining it in her lab, forensic biologist Jacinthe Prévost concluded it matched DNA found on a drinking straw in Lin Jun’s Forest Hill apartment.

Testifying during the third week of Luka Magnotta’s first-degree murder trial, Prévost recounted the painstaking work she did to extract minuscule cells from blood and sperm stains, hair and bits of flesh and match them to the accused or his victim.

Her job wasn’t easy — after days in airless plastic garbage bags and hot temperatures, many of the biological samples had already decomposed.

She said there was blood on the bathroom sink, floor, shower curtain, bottom of the fridge, in the freezer, on the kitchen table, on the wall in the hall and on the heater of Magnotta’s Décarie Blvd. apartment.

All of it matched the DNA of the murdered and dismembered Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese national studying at Concordia University.

At the police command post set up at the scene, Prévost viewed the so-called murder video — which Magnotta made and posted online — before heading into the accused’s dreary bachelor apartment. One Montreal police officer testified Tuesday the building was well known for drug and alcohol problems.

Two and a half hours later, at 6:55 a.m. on May 30, 2012, Prévost finished her tour and watched the video again to try to match the blood stains she had just seen to the actions that had been filmed.

The biologist described what she saw on the infamous video, shot around May 24, 2012 when Lin was killed. His torso was found by a janitor five days later in a suitcase behind Magnotta’s building — the first of many gruesome discoveries of Lin’s body parts.

The video showed a person, partially hidden by a hoodie, stabbing and hitting a mutilated body, Prévost said. The video also had footage of an arm in the freezer and limbs in the bathtub. She also described several unusual sexual acts, such as inserting a wine bottle in the victim’s anus.

No traces of sperm or blood could be lifted from the bottle, but Lin’s DNA was found on the bottle’s rim.

The biologist, who said she testifies in court about 10 times a year, said Magnotta’s apartment was sparsely furnished and contained no personal affects aside from a hat on the shelf in the closet.

The victim’s blood was found on a purple kangaroo jacket as well as on a Casablanca poster. Both were found in the garbage behind Magnotta’s apartment building.

Prévost used a product called Luminol in the bachelor apartment to detect places where blood wasn’t readily visible and may have been cleaned up. She said the product is sprayed on surfaces and when the room is darkened, traces of blood will glow blue.

“Blood showed up everywhere in the bathroom,” she told Quebec Superior Court. “And the kitchen floor reacted strongly to Luminol.”

The bathroom sink was stained with a lot of diluted blood and had been partially cleaned, she said.

“There was an enormous amount of blood on the mattress,” Prévost testified, while showing the jury a photo of Magnotta’s double bed. When the mattress was flipped over, it was clear the blood had soaked through to the other side, she said.

Another sheet covering the box spring was also blood-stained.

Lin’s DNA was found on the two knives found in the garbage behind Magnotta’s building but could not be found on the scissors. Lin’s DNA was also found on the hammer, screw driver and the blade of the electric saw.

Prévost said she didn’t conduct DNA tests on bones from the skull, which was found in Angrignon Park on July 1, 2012, or on teeth.

“The skull had been identified through other means,” she testified.

Magnotta, 32, has admitted to killing and dismembering Lin, but claims his disturbed mental state prevented him from fully understanding the nature of his actions. The Crown contends that Magnotta planned and deliberately carried out his crimes.

Throughout his trial so far, the Scarborough, Ont., native has sat emotionless in the prisoner’s box.

The 14-member jury (there are two more than usual in case a juror drops out of the lengthy trial) has already been shown surveillance video footage showing Magnotta entering his building with an apparently willing Lin on May 24, 2012. Lin is never seen again.

But cameras in the building’s lobby, entrance and basement picked up Magnotta’s comings and goings until the early evening of May 26, when he’s seen leaving the building for the last time. He can be seen calmly carrying garbage bags out of the building and dumping things in garbage barrels in the building’s basement.

He is seen a few times stopping to look at himself in the mirror and adjust what appears to be a wig. At one point, he orders a pizza.

Once disappearing off the apartment cameras, he reappears on surveillance footage at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport, where he catches a flight to Paris.

After taking a bus to Berlin and spending a few days with a man he’d met online, Magnotta was arrested June 4, 2012 by German police and returned to Montreal. He has been in detention ever since.

Lin Jun probably died when his throat was cut and was already dead when his body was stabbed and cut into 10 pieces.

It took pathologist Yann Dazé five days to conduct the autopsy on the 33-year-old Concordia University student and his 13-page report, which was presented Thursday in Quebec Superior Court, detailed a vicious, inhumane attack.

Lin was stabbed 55 times in his chest and abdomen, most likely with a torx screw driver. The weapon went deep enough to reach the lungs and intestines. His head was hit innumerable times with a hammer, which, if inflicted when Lin was alive, most likely contributed to his death or at least knocked him unconscious, Dazé said.

His coccyx was broken and his rectum torn, probably by a wine bottle.

Dazé said that most of the injuries, except the cut throat and blows to the head, happened after Lin had died.

The fact that the body arrived at the Montreal morgue at different times and in several pieces complicated his job, Dazé told Luka Magnotta’s first-degree murder trial. The body parts were also already badly decomposed.

“It was also difficult because we usually proceed in logical steps, but the state of the body made this more complex,” he testified during Day 8 of the trial.

Dazé began the job on June 1, 2012, by examining the torso, which included the neck and tops of the thighs. It had been found May 29 in a suitcase behind Magnotta’s Décarie Blvd. apartment. He was also given two arms and two legs that were missing their hands and feet. All had been kept at 4 degrees C in the morgue’s fridge.

The morgue also received Lin’s left foot and hand, which were mailed to Ottawa and his right hand and foot, which were sent to Vancouver. The pathologist noted that the fingers of the left hand were cut as though “someone wanted to get rid of fingerprints.”

The head, which wasn’t found until July 1, 2012 in Angrignon Park was in an advanced mummified state and there were signs that animals had come across it, Dazé said.

Under questioning by Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier, Dazé said he had been shown 10 photos of the scene by Montreal Police detectives on the case but didn’t watch the video of the crime that had been posted online.

“I see enough disgusting things in my work, so I didn’t need to watch the video,” Dazé told court.

Magnotta, 32, has admitted he killed and dismembered Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese national and Concordia University student. But he claims his mental state at the time impeded his ability to know right from wrong.

Bouthillier is setting out to prove that Magnotta is guilty of first-degree murder and that his actions were planned and deliberate.

Magnotta brought Lin to his apartment the night of May 24, 2012, where he killed and dismembered him, and recorded the horrific acts on video. Throughout the night, and all day May 25, Magnotta dumped Lin’s torso, legs and arms in the garbage.

53-year-old Frank Rubert, left, is escorted from a courtroom by an unidentified Montreal police officer Oct. 8, 2014. Rubert was testifying at Luka Magnotta’s first degree murder trial, having connected with the accused on GayRomeo.com at the end of May 2012.

The next night he flew to Paris, then took a bus to Berlin where he stayed with a man he’d met online. Frank Rubert testified this week that the two of them went out for dinner and to bars, but that Magnotta didn’t drink much or take drugs. He seemed normal, Rubert testified.

Magnotta was arrested June 4, 2012, in an Internet café by German police and brought back to Canada.

Dazé said that Lin’s throat was cut, most likely with a knife but an electric saw, like the one found in the garbage outside Magnotta’s apartment, would have been needed to cut through the spinal cord.

“We use one like that during autopsies when we need to cut open the skull,” Dazé said.

He said a knife was used to cut through skin and other soft tissue, but the arm and leg bones were broken at the joint with something like a hammer then ripped from their joints. The hands and feet were removed in the same fashion.

There were four stab wounds — probably from a knife — on Lin’s abdomen, but because the body was so decomposed, it was impossible for Dazé to say how deep the weapon penetrated.

A piece of Lin’s left buttock was also missing, the pathologist said.

Two medications — the antihistamine Benadryl and sleeping pill temazepam — were found in Lin’s body. There were no signs of the date rape drug, GHB, Dazé noted.

Dazé said it was impossible to determine in what order the injuries were inflicted after Lin died. There were no signs that Lin had tried to defend himself, he said.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/lin-jun-autopsy-took-five-days-luka-magnotta-trial-hears/feed0100914-POB14_0604_Lab0087.jpg-POS1406041558268537-216296326-POB14_0604_Lab0087-W.jpgmontgomerysue53-year-old Frank Rubert, left, is escorted from a courtroom by an unidentified Montreal police officer Oct. 8, 2014. Rubert was testifying at Luka Magnotta's first degree murder trial, having connected with the accused on GayRomeo.com at the end of May 2012.Lin Jun's friend describes search for missing manhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/lin-juns-friend-describes-search-for-missing-man
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/lin-juns-friend-describes-search-for-missing-man#commentsTue, 07 Oct 2014 22:25:16 +0000http://postmediamontrealgazette2.wordpress.com/?p=272924]]>The week before his 67th birthday, Thomas Murphy was feeling down so the retired member of the U.S. Navy decided to treat himself with an escort from the online site RentBoys.com.

The young, pleasant, clean-cut man, who said his name was Luke, arrived late afternoon on March 3, 2012 at Murphy’s twelfth-floor apartment in the Plateau highrise.

Murphy offered him cheese and crackers and a drink, but all the escort had was ice tea before the two had what Murphy described as “plain Jane gay sex.”

That 75-minute visit, and each subsequent one, cost Murphy $150.

A few months later, Murphy was horrified to recognize a photo of Luka Magnotta circulating in the news as the clean-cut escort he had met five times — twice in March and three times in May, the month Lin Jun was killed.

“Holy crap,” said Murphy, describing his reaction Tuesday during Magnotta’s first-degree murder trial in Quebec Superior Court. “I was scared out of my wits and to this day I haven’t seen another escort.”

Murphy noted that the heavier, darker haired and bespectacled Magnotta that sat just metres away from him Tuesday in the prisoner’s box did not resemble the thin man he had met two years ago.

“He was a plain, simple young kid trying to make a few bucks,” he said, noting he always looked neat and tidy, and was much thinner back then. “It was good for my ego.

“I wouldn’t have had him back a second time if I’d known what was going to happen.”

Murphy said he last saw Magnotta May 14, 2012, then texted him before a planned May 21 date to make sure it was still on. He never heard back, he said.

It was just a few days later, on May 24, when Magnotta brought Lin Jun to his Decarie Blvd. apartment where he killed and dismembered the Chinese national. He claims that he wasn’t aware of what he was doing at the time due to his disturbed mental state.

But Murphy said that in his meetings with Magnotta, he had no reason to suspect what horror would follow. There was no bondage, no spanking, just straight forward anal and oral sex, he testified. And one of the things he liked about Magnotta was that he didn’t take drugs or drink. Even good bottles of wine, served with Murphy’s Steak Diane, went unfinished, he said.

“I felt someone was being affectionate with me, and that’s what I was craving at the time,” he told the court. “It was less about the sex and more about being with someone.”

He said during one of their meetings in May, Magnotta asked Murphy if he could bring along his puppy and he arrived with it in a shoulder bag, but with no food.

Earlier in the day, the 14-member jury heard from Lin’s friend, Dong Dong Xu, who discovered an oiled frying pan on the stove and eggs on the counter of his missing friend’s Forest Hill Ave. apartment on May 27.

Lin’s cat seemed very hungry and there was garbage scattered everywhere, Xu told the trial.

Xu, 31, said he first met Lin online through a mutual friend, then met him in person after arriving in Canada.

“He was quite a shy person, very lovely, very much liked by everyone around him,” testified Xu, who was dressed in a suit and tie.

Xu said he saw Lin at least once a week, and the two would eat together with Lin’s boyfriend, Feng Lin, and others.

On the Sunday evening of May 27, 2012, Xu was dining with some friends when he got a call from Feng Lin, who had returned to Canada. He was worried because he hadn’t been able to reach Lin Jun for more than 60 hours, Xu told the court.

Twenty minutes later, at about 9:30 p.m., Xu got into Lin Jun’s apartment with the help of the superintendent but his friend wasn’t there.

Xu then headed to the depanneur where Lin Jun worked and his boss said he hadn’t shown up for work since the previous Thursday.

On May 29, Xu went online to view the video, One Lunatic One Icepick, and saw a still photo of a severed head. He recognized it as Lin and called police.

“One officer suggested I see a counsellor,” Xu testified. “He said that in his entire career as a police officer, he’d never seen a murder scene like this one.”

The jury was shown surveillance camera footage Tuesday from a Berlin Internet café, where Magnotta went at 11:54 a.m. on June 4, 2012, after spending some time in Paris.

At one point in the footage, a man is seen at the café doorway, beckoning German police on the street. Soon after, seven police officers enter the café and leave about five minutes later with Magnotta.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/lin-juns-friend-describes-search-for-missing-man/feed0100714-Crime_Magnotta_20141007-POS1410071344531323-Trial-W.jpgmontgomerysueHow Luka Magnotta and Lin Jun met is a mystery, police sayhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/how-magnotta-and-lin-jun-met-a-mystery-police
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/how-magnotta-and-lin-jun-met-a-mystery-police#commentsTue, 07 Oct 2014 16:22:34 +0000http://postmediamontrealgazette2.wordpress.com/?p=271312]]>Shortly after killing and dismembering Lin Jun, Luka Magnotta went on the travel site Expedia in the early hours of May 25, 2012, and bought a plane ticket to Paris for the following evening.

His return flight was booked for June 1.

But before his trip, Magnotta appeared to have many things to take care of. His comings and goings from the time he entered his Decarie Blvd. apartment on May 24 at 10:14 p.m. with Lin to the time he left the building for the last time less than 48 hours later were captured on surveillance video camera and shown to Quebec Superior Court Monday and last Friday.

After appearing to clean up all day May 25, Magnotta continued his purging the next day. At 5:28 a.m. on May 26, the Scarborough, Ont., native carried garbage bags out the front door of his apartment and carefully closed the door behind him. He calmly dumped garbage in the basement, carefully lowering the lid on the metal barrels, then smoothed his wig. The jury was already shown footage Friday of Magnotta’s activity May 25, the day following the killing. He’s seen carrying items to the basement and outside, but never too rushed to stop and check himself in the lobby’s mirror.

Magnotta has admitted to killing and dismembering Lin and mailing his body parts across the country.

He can be seen on surveillance footage from May 26, which was shown in court Monday, leaving the building via the front door again at 6:35 a.m. then returning at 9:23 a.m., making his way through the people sitting on the front steps outside. He’s out again at 11:11 a.m., returning at 4:25 p.m. As Magnotta makes his way through the lobby, a man passing him stares at Magnotta, who is wearing sunglasses and his ill-fitting wig.

The last time Magnotta is picked up on the building’s surveillance camera is at 5:14 p.m. on May 26. He resurfaces again at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport at about 8 p.m. where he’s seen on airport surveillance footage, wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, checking in and making his way through security.

Magnotta, 32, has admitted to killing and dismembering Lin, a 33-year-old Chinese national, and mailing his body parts across the country. But his defence is that he didn’t know what he was doing at the time, due to mental illness. The prosecution believes that Magnotta deliberately planned and carried out his acts.

Despite scouring about 7,000 photos found on Lin’s computer, examining cellphone records, as well as Skype and email messages, Montreal Police have not been able to determine how or when the Concordia University student met Magnotta. In video footage from the apartment, Lin appears to be entering the building willingly, even holding the door open for Magnotta.

Sgt-Det. Claudette Hamlin, the investigator on the case, said that while going through surveillance footage from the week before Lin’s death, they noticed Magnotta entering the building on May 18 at about 11 p.m. with another man. The next day at 11 a.m. Magnotta leaves the building alone, but returns seconds later, and leaves with the man at 11:05. a.m.

Hamlin said that despite exhaustive research, police were never able to identify the man.

In surveillance footage shown earlier, Magnotta is seen wearing the same baseball cap Lin wore when he first entered Magnotta’s apartment on May 24.

Hamlin said police seized the cap, as well as the wig, which was purchased for $1,700, when they arrested Magnotta in Berlin in June.

Related

Hamlin testified that Magnotta changed phone numbers on May 25, 2012. He made several calls to a number in the Peterborough, Ont., area code, 705, starting at 6 a.m. The last call was at 7:22 a.m. and lasted 206 seconds. She said the first call Magnotta made to that number was in March, 2012. One of the calls that month lasted 1500 seconds, or 25 minutes. She said there were no incoming calls to the number.

Once Magnotta landed on May 27 at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, surveillance cameras picked him up at 12:49 p.m. going through immigration with other passengers. He leaves the arrival area and the next time he’s seen is on a Paris Novotel Hotel video camera.

He checks in and the camera picks him up on his floor at 2:43 p.m., wearing sunglasses and the wig. Hours later, at 11:23 p.m. Magnotta is seen leaving the hotel, wearing a different T-shirt and carrying a bag.

The final sighting of him in Paris is May 31, at 10:27 a.m. when he is in line at the bus station to get a Euroline ticket to Berlin.

The trial continues Tuesday with the conclusion of Hamlin’s testimony. A friend of Lin Jun’s is supposed to testify next.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/how-magnotta-and-lin-jun-met-a-mystery-police/feed0Luka Magnotta and Lin JunmontgomerysueThe Story So Far: Magnotta ruling Tuesday, city out of depth on water metershttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-story-so-far-magnotta-ruling-tuesday-city-out-of-depth-on-water-meters
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-story-so-far-magnotta-ruling-tuesday-city-out-of-depth-on-water-meters#commentsMon, 11 Mar 2013 20:13:02 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=214099]]>Hello and welcome to The Story So Far for Monday, March 11.

http://wpmedia.montrealgazette.com/2013/03/ssfmarch112.mp3]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-story-so-far-magnotta-ruling-tuesday-city-out-of-depth-on-water-meters/feed0PC13 0311 MAGNOTTA01.jpgjamesmennieThe Story So Far: Lachine Hospital yanked from MUHC, trapped orcas on their ownhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-story-so-far-lachine-hospital-yanked-from-muhc-trapped-orcas-on-their-own
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-story-so-far-lachine-hospital-yanked-from-muhc-trapped-orcas-on-their-own#commentsThu, 10 Jan 2013 12:01:28 +0000http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/?p=205315]]>Hello and welcome to The Story So Far for Jan. 10.